When Hurricane Sandy hit his New Dorp Beach neighborhood about 6 p.m. on Oct. 29, "Me and Mom and my brother started hearing the screaming downstairs [from their tenants] and it was horrible. I never want to hear it again."

It wasn't long before the man who lives downstairs with his wife and two small daughters -- the 6-year-old is partially paralyzed -- asked for help.

Santangelo and his brother went downstairs and struggled against the rising water to open the front door. Once outside, they discovered that debris blocked the door to the tenants' apartment. So, with his fist, Santangelo set about smashing a window. The double panes shattered, but the glass cut an artery in his left wrist, along with tendons and ligaments. There was also minor damage to his right hand.

Meanwhile, the water continued its inexorable rise, nearly up to his throat.

Santangelo told his brother, Lorenzo, 19, to go on without him.

"He said, 'Why are you leaving me?' When he saw my hand, he wanted to run to me." But Santangelo kept his priorities straight: "I shouted at him, 'Get them [the tenants] out of the house!'"

Because of Santangelo's EMT training, "I knew I was in serious trouble." He made it upstairs to his second-floor apartment to his mother, Giovanna, and sister, Francesca, 16; his mother applied a tourniquet to his hand.

"I was scared, I was shivering to my core," Santangelo said. "I felt weak but I was not showing it to my family. I knew they wouldn't be able to handle it."

After both families were safely upstairs, it was a long wait till a water rescue by the FDNY about 11:30 p.m. Santangelo was taken to Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, where he needed two surgeries in the space of three days to stop the bleeding and reattach the tendons and ligaments.

There is some nerve damage to his left hand; doctors say it's too early to know whether the damage is permanent. Â

"TONS OF SUPPORT"

As to why the families remained in their house despite the evacuation order, Santangelo cited last year's relatively benign Hurricane Irene, which failed to live up to its billing. He said, "Everything happens for a reason. If I was not there, those people might not have made it."

A plumber by trade, Santangelo also took the FDNY test. After all the excitement, he said, he'll probably stick with plumbing -- but he might do EMT work part-time.

In the meantime, many of his good friends are pitching in. Santangelo said he's grateful to his girlfriend, Alyson Raiolo, 25, who has taken him into her Annadale home and is caring for him while he recovers; he's also grateful to her father, Louie Raiolo, who is spearheading the repair effort at his house.

Santangelo said he learned some life lessons that day about what really matters, and he hopes others have, too: "As long as you have family, everything else can be replaced."

He admits he's well aware that things could have turned out very differently for him that fateful Monday, but he decided not to give up so easily: "I fought [for my life]. I didn't want to leave." ---Follow @siadvance on Twitter